Saints' win leaves Browns, Lions, Jaguars and Texans as only teams never to appear in Super Bowl

The Saints' win in the NFC championship game on Sunday will remove them from the dubious list of teams that have never appeared in the Super Bowl.

New Orleans will make its first appearance in the NFL title game on Feb. 7 against the Colts. It's the second straight year that a team is making its Super Bowl debut and the fourth in the past seven seasons.

The Cardinals had never been to a Super Bowl before their loss to the Steelers last year. And three years prior, the Seahawks crossed the Super barrier, also in a losing effort to the Steelers, with their appearance in Super Bowl XL.

Perhaps in a bad omen for the Saints, the Panthers lost to the Patriots in their Super Bowl debut two years prior to that.

There will still be four teams never to have appeared in a Super Bowl after this season. Two (the Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars) are relatively young franchises. The other two (the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns) are old-time NFL stalwarts whose presence in the league predates the Super Bowl.

Listed are the four teams' deepest penetrations in the playoffs during the Super Bowl era:

Cleveland: Lost in AFC title game in 1986, 1987 and 1989. Lost in NFL title game (prior to AFL-NFL merger) in 1968 and 1969.

Detroit: Lost in NFC title game in 1991.

Houston: Has never qualified for the postseason since entering the league in 2002.

Jacksonville: Lost in AFC title game in 1996 and 1999 (entered league in 1995).

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About Nate Davis

Nate Davis is a reporter, blogger and editor who's been at USA TODAY since 2000. He has covered the NFL since 2005. No, he did not play quarterback for Ball State. Davis' succession of our esteemed colleague Sean Leahy at The Huddle is considered a Brady-for-Bledsoe swap by most "insiders."More about Nate